Wordless Wednesday – Retroactive Pennies

best dog blog, champion of my heart, vase full of pennies

Since I just came up with the pennies idea to track Lilly’s survival, I decided to go retro — retroactive, that is. I went to the bank and got rolls and rolls of pennies so that I had 1 penny for every day since Lilly received that fateful rabies vaccine on January 23, 2012, that royally screwed up her brain and spinal cord. Today marks Day 394 of Lilly’s survival. Howz that for positive thinking?

Several of our Champion of My Heart Facebook Fans suggested I read a book by a Denver author called The Legacy of Beezer and Boomer: Lessons on Living and Dying from My Canine Brothers (by Doug Koktavy).

He chronicles the loss of BOTH his labs — one to kidney disease and the other to bone cancer, and the book includes several really good ideas for coping with the preemptive grief and care-taking fatigue that plagues dog lovers in a life / death battle.

I read / skimmed / sobbed through the entire book in one sitting, but here are a few ideas I found helpful:

  • Guilt is living in the past.
  • Fear is living in the future.
  • You can have hope without expectation.

A life-long hockey player, Doug even fashioned a “penalty box” for the con artists (the diseases) hell bent on robbing him of joy TODAY. Whenever he felt the disease overshadowing the joy of having his two Lab boys at his side, Doug would essentially Trash Talk the diseases back into the penalty box.

I figure, I could get pretty good at Trash Talking the inflammation in Lilly’s body. Don’t you think?

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Oh, and I’ve started adding heart-shaped beads and such to our Champion of My Heart Pinterest Board – Dog Memorial Ideas because I think I might like a pretty memento of Lilly ~~ maybe a black-and-white heart necklace, if I can find one I adore.